Product Advertisements: it’s Definition, Writing Style and Media

Defining an Advertisement:

To advertise a product, service or an idea is to draw attention to it favorably using a mass medium.

An ad performs several functions:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

(a) To introduce a new product in the market

(b) To tell of its comparative merits in a competitive market

(c) To increase the use of a product and the frequency of its use

(d) To bring new areas and new population groups into the fold of buyers (e.g. a chocolate promoted for all age groups and not just children)

ADVERTISEMENTS:

(e) To bring together a group of related products (e.g. cosmetics with a variety of applications)

(f) To make the brand name noticed and popular. There are, for instance, ads which say nothing except the name of shoe brand around a cricket ground.

(g) To educate the public about a useful product which they had been missing

(h) To remove misunderstandings about a product

ADVERTISEMENTS:

(i) To influence opinion leaders

An ad addresses an existing need or creates a need which was unfelt. Its appeal is to the mind (desires), intellect (judgment) and the senses.

For attracting clients, it offers money-saving, better quality, durability, pleasure, prestige, profit, healthy living, convenience and such other benefits as motivate people to act. When the appeal is to the senses, the message is remembered better.

With an average city dweller’s exposure to thousands of ads at home and outside, the competition for attention is high and the imagination is stretched to the limit to find out new ways of attracting attention and being remembered.

Writing an Advertisement Copy:

Drafting and designing an ad is a specialist job, often requiring the services of a professional ad agency. Many companies, however, have their own ad wing as part of its publicity operations. The message of an ad copy is multiplied by a good visual. A copy may contribute 50% of the appeal and the visual the remaining 50%. The percentage may vary, of course.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

So the copywriter has to work in a team with the graphic visualize and graphic artist. These days visuals are generally taken from the huge banks of pictures and photos which some computer programmes have, reducing the need for sketching or taking photographs.

An ad copy must reveal the consumer benefit and the reason why.

It consists of a headline and then a body copy. On a newspaper page, for instance, there are ads and ads, and the headline has to be catchy to hook the reader’s attention. Generally, about 90% of the work of attracting reader attention is done by the headline.

The five steps in converting a potential buyer into an actual buyer are:

1. Getting attention

2. Creating interest

3. Arousing desire

4. Convincing of merits

5. Inspiring action.

We shall see how this works through a specimen written for study and some real-life ads used by advertisers in the media.

The headline uses financial terms like “capital” and “invest” which are related to business. The body copy is given in bullet points for easy, quick reading. Nowadays, small ads that are classified into subject wise categories are quite popular and constitute the largest number of ads in a newspaper.

A further development in this type of ads is classified display ads that use visuals and various layout techniques while being placed on the classified ads page. The classification ranges from situations vacant, matrimonial, accommodation… to sale or purchase of goods or services.

The language of ads is usually concise and imaginative. Various literary devices are used in the headline and body copy.

(i) Someone special is coming your way, did you Cherry Blossom your shoes?

(ii) Do you make these mistakes in English?

Specimen ads from print media:

Media for Advertisement:

Broadly we can classify the media as indoor and outdoor.

Indoor media:

1. Television:

Being an audio-visual medium, it is the most powerful in affecting the senses, mind and intellect. Advertisers use professional models, cartoons or celebrities to drive home their message. With colours and music in play, and special effects to add, these ads can be quite entertaining. And yet the excess of them that we see these days stretches to the limit the ability of the viewer to respond to them or to remember the product names and their benefits. Since these ads follow in a chain, consumers tend to get up from the TV-front seat or mute the TV when the ads rush in.

2. Radio:

This medium has been in use for nearly a century now. Radio can be heard without the need to fix one’s eyes to a spot, and can be played while working, cooking, studying, etc. Its reach is farther than that of TV though the ability to engage attention is much less. Music and jingles make radio ads more memorable.

3. Newspapers and magazines:

Almost every educated home gets a newspaper and some magazines. Ads account for about half the newspaper space though the percentage varies for magazines. Now most newspapers use colours to add charm. Newspapers ads can be made more effective by putting them on the appropriate page and timing them well.

A financial product can be advertised on the page for financial news, youth-related ads (educational institutions) on the sports page, and festivals can be used for announcing discount schemes.

4. Direct mail:

An advertiser procures addresses of potential buyers from various sources (e.g. by giving a free gift to an existing contact). There is a socio-economic research study behind effective mail-selling. The Reader’s Digest is one of the more prominent users of this type of advertising.

Outdoor media:

1. Hoardings/billboards:

Huge boards are set up by the roadside or at squares and a brief, easily graspable message painted on it. These serve very well to supplement TV ads. At night one may see a new TV ad and the next day see the same product advertised, in a different way, on a hoarding.

While the TV advertiser appears someone remote in a metro city, the hoarding ad brings him closer. The local contact can be given in a hoarding ad. Hoardings are especially used for promoting stores in the neighborhood and major sales outlets anywhere in town.

2. Posters:

Posters are often displayed at POP (point of purchase) where the consumer takes the decision to pay for a product. Posters can be seen anywhere and everywhere: on buses, auto rickshaws, in stores. Sometimes they are as small as the thickness of the shelf in a medicine shop. That is miniaturization for you. City walls and empty spaces anywhere – electric poles included – are used for displaying posters.

3. Electric or neon signs:

They are similar to hoardings except in the technology. Neon signs and electric displays are visible at night. They are made more effective by an on-and-off mechanism or a movie message where the words rotate, and curiosity pushes the reader to wait and read the whole.

4. Balloons:

At fetes and exhibitions one sees large balloons held high in the sky, displaying an ad. The ground for advertising is – any place you can think of. Large business houses are heard saying, “Half the money we spend on advertising is a waste. But the question is which half?” It is necessary to measure the pulling power of an ad and use the feedback for the next ad. Trading houses measure the responses simply by counting the phone calls they receive on a day in response to an ad.